Racket and paddle sports have huge numbers of recreational participants. Some of the more popular racket and paddle sports include tennis, racquetball, badminton, ping pong, etc.
A common problem encountered by recreational players is losing track of the score. Since there is generally no non-participating scorekeeper, the players themselves have to also track the score. This can lead to many problems, given that the players chief focal point is on the playing of the points themselves. Although players are generally required to announce the score before each serve, confusion can be generated by long rallies, when changing servers, or simply in the course of the game itself In addition to honest mistakes in the actual score of a game, a less than sportsmanlike player may intentionally misstate the score.
Disagreements in the score are a common cause of discord in recreational paddle and racket games, and can easily lead to arguments and decreased enjoyment of the game. In the worst case, games may be cancelled because of these disagreements.
Because of the expense of having an impartial scorekeeper, that solution is rarely, if ever, available to the recreational player. Inexpensive score displays are available, but the same problems with confusion of score can arise with these manual devices. It is simply too inconvenient for a player to periodically interrupt the game to update a scoreboard. Similarly, to date there has been no available automated device that has a selling price low enough to make it readily available to the pickup player.
The problem of tracking the score has been addressed by the inventor relative to other sports, e.g. volleyball, in U.S. Pat. No. 5,574,422, the "Multi-Functional Volleyball Talking Scorekeeper", issued Nov. 12, 1996. The present invention addresses specifically the grid used to control the talking scorekeeper adapted specifically for table tennis or ping pong. There are currently no easily activated means of operating a scorekeeping device for ping pong.
Accordingly, it is an object of the present invention to provide a means for automatically keeping score of recreational ping pong games.
It is another object of the present invention to provide a device that is activated by the players' paddles.
It is a further object of the present invention to provide a device that allows play to be continuous.
It is a still further object of the present invention to provide a device that is simple and inexpensive to manufacture.